Peaty breaststrokes his way to swimming sprint double

Adam Peaty completed a double sprint double on Wednesday night when he won the gold medal in the 50 metres breaststroke at the swimming world championships in Budapest.

Adam Peaty has won four individual medals at the swimming world championships in 2015 and 2017. Reuters/Laszlo Balogh

On 24 July the 22-year-old Briton took the 100-metres breakstroke gold with a championship record of 57.47 seconds and he clocked 25.99 seconds in the 50 metres to secure his fourth individual medal at the championships.

Brazil's Joao Gomes Junior won silver and Cameron van der Burgh was third.

"I know I can do faster than that," said Peaty after his 50-metres triumph. "Maybe in a few years I can come back and actually do it. But for now I'm more than over the moon."

Van der Burgh, the 2009 and 2013 world champion in the 50 metres, paid tribute to the victor. "I think I have to retire and give it a few years and come back when he's older," he joked.

The 29-year-old South African added: "It's really impressive. It's not even breaststroke any more. He is swimming like a new kind of stroke, like a metamorphosis between butterfly and breaststroke.

"You have to have a lot of power, obviously, to swim it and it's suited to his kind of stroke. But it's difficult because not everyone can do it. Probably you would have to start imitating that kind of fly movement to beat him."

And Peaty acknowledged that could well be happening. "Being a champion - an Olympic champion or a world champion - and getting the wins makes people think you are unbeatable," he said.

"But there is probably a kid saying: 'I can beat Adam Peaty'. And I hope there is, as that's a good challenge for me.

"It takes a special type of person to think that and that's where I made that step, to say, 'Yes, I can take on the rest of the world'. Everyone's beatable, it's just when and where."